Completed Collaborative Projects

The "AdaM" project partners have set themselves the goal of meeting the global socio-political challenges in mobility, energy and climate. Increasing resource efficiency in energy supply and mobility should bring not only economic but also ecological benefits. By mastering complex technologies, the project partners developed a unique selling point and established this sustainably by expanding cooperation possibilities.

The aim of the research project is to additively manufacture threading tools made of high-speed steel by means of Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF). The additivley manufactured tools lead to increased process reliability and service life in use, especially in SMEs, through customised cooling channel geometries. The economic Additive Manufacturing is systematically investigated by considering and adapting the entire manufacturing process chain of threading tools.

In order to work out the objective, an economic processing of a crack-prone high-speed steel by means of LPBF under the lowest possible geometric restrictions for complex components is investigated. The post-processing of the additive parts by means of hot isostatic pressing (HIP) and heat treatment as well as the resulting mechanical characteristic values are determined in order to define an economic manufacturing process chain for additive components made of high-speed steel. Based on the boundary conditions, the coolant supply of threading tools is optimized in terms of fluid mechanics in order to reduce pressure losses in the tool. In combination with an FEM simulation, the tool design is iteratively revised to ensure the best possible fluid flow with the most stable tool possible.

The overall result of the project is a set of design guidelines for the design and manufacture of tools, enabling SMEs to implement the results of the project directly in their production. The technological advantage for SMEs to produce and use more efficient threading tools in their production and use them in production leads to a long-term expansion of competitive advantages.

The German steel industry and the German mechanical and plant engineering sector are of particular importance for securing an efficient and innovative industrial landscape in North Rhine-Westphalia. To ensure this performance, it is essential to develop new steel materials from which innovative components with adapted properties (e.g. weight reduction) can be manufactured. In this context, Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) offers outstanding potential for manufacturing industrial and functionally improved products directly from digital data, thus changing the supply network in the long term. However, according to the current state of the art, no steel materials are qualified for the LPBF process that are required in mechanical and plant engineering, or the processing of these steel materials (case-hardened and heat-treated steels) using LPBF leads to the formation of cracks and defects, making industrial use impossible.

Extensive studies on the adaptation of LPBF process control and system technology do not go far enough to process these steel materials, whose alloy compositions are designed for conventional production routes (primary forming, machining), by means of LPBF. For this reason, the aim of the research project is to make new steel materials processable for use in mechanical and plant engineering through iterative alloy development or adaptation in combination with systematic adaptation of the LPBF process control and plant technology. Based on the developed steel materials, LPBF process control and plant technology, demonstrators will be produced which represent two manufacturing scenarios in machine and plant construction (new and spare components). Subsequently, the components will be tested with regard to their performance and an economic feasibility analysis will be carried out.

As part of the "AddToP" project, Fraunhofer ILT and partners from industry are developing a technology processor for Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) for the Additive Manufacturing of components made of Ti6Al4V. The technology processor enables the process parameters used to be adapted to the specific component geometry and the requirements of the user. In this way, the Additive Manufacturing process can be adapted to specific requirements of the application and process speed, robustness and component quality can be increased.

Technology metals or rare earth elements are important raw materials found in almost every electronic small appliance we use daily. However, the natural deposits of these elements are limited, and these materials must also be obtained in elaborate and often environmentally harmful processes from the appropriate ores. Using these raw materials sustainably is, therefore, becoming increasingly important. For this reason, instead of extracting raw materials, the industry is favoring material recovery: the recycling of old, unusable equipment. The Fraunhofer ILT, together with numerous international partners, is breaking new ground in the research of modern recycling processes in the project ADIR (Next Generation Urban Mining – Automated Disassembly, Separation and Recovery of Valuable Materials from Electronic Equipment). Funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework from September 2015 to August 2019, ADIR is exploring ways to make recycling processes more effective and efficient with the help of laser technology.

The recycling and extraction of raw materials from „electronic waste“ has been growing for some time now and became the recognized state of the art in the field of electronic devices since the mid-1990s. Nevertheless, the recycling processes are subject to constant development. In conventional recycling, the equipment is usually shredded. From the resulting mix of plastics, metals and glass, the desired raw materials are extracted in metallurgical or chemical processes. In this process, however, valuable raw materials are lost. ADIR has set itself the goal of using laser-based methods to recognize the corresponding materials in the device and to separate them in a targeted manner from the other materials and recyclables in subsequent work steps.

The aim of the project is the avoidance of waste, manual efforts and costs caused by support structures in lithographic 3D printing processes. Materials are under development which have an UV-curing property and an additional thermal phase transition. These materials are supposed to be processed without support structures in combination with Fraunhofer ILT's TwoCure® technology.

ALISE (Diode-pumped Alexandrite Laser Instrument for Next Generation Satellite-based Earth Observation) is supervised by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

Together with the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics (IAP) and the subcontractor Airbus Defence & Space, scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT are conducting research into optical technologies for satellite-based observation of the global climate.

The AMable project facilitates the uptake of additive manufacturing in companies. The partners – institutes and companies with a wealth of experience in the field of additive manufacturing – provide comprehensive knowledge and support to European SME’s, midcaps and industry. The experts accompany each idea from the start to the first prototype – each challenge receives a business case assessment to identify the potential of the idea, the suitable services to develop it and a roadmap to ramp up production for a successful market entry.

AMable implements the Industrial Dataspace principle for Additive Manufacturing which follows the paradigm of leaving the data with the owner to put each participant in full command of his intellectual property. AMable also creates a Blockchain app that enables a continuous secured documentation of creation and change across the product evolution. Data owners use this app to chain a digital fingerprint of their files for later reference or content integrity validation.

Feasibility of functional requirements is ensured by design recommendations from the experts who use the latest construction and simulation tools. For example, visualization services involve new technologies in virtual and augmented reality. Complete use cases will be stored in the AMable Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) to provide a rich variety of solutions to new projects.

The European Commission supports the AMable project which is coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in the context of the I4MS initiative.

Vascularization is one of the most important and highly challenging issues in the development of soft tissue. It is necessary to supply cells with nutrition within a multilayer tissue, for example in artificial skin. Our research on artificial skin is driven by an increasing demand for two main applications: for the field of regenerative medicine, victims must be provided with soft tissue implants, as well as soft tissue is necessary after traumatic injuries and tumour treatment. Secondly, to substitute the expensive and ethically disputed pharmaceutical tests on animals by artificial vascularized test beds to simulate the uptake of the pharmaceuticals into the blood.

The joint project BI-TRE investigated efficient, reliable and cost-effective methods for the microsurgical bonding of small blood vessels and the laser fixing of wound pads in the mouth and throat.

The aim of the Interreg NWE BONE project, led by Prof. Lorenzo Morono, MERLN Insitute, Maastricht University is to research new methods for the improved treatment of bone fractures and to strengthen the performance of the North-West European economy. The four-year project started in March 2017. Eight partners from industry and research from the Netherlands, Germany, England, Ireland, France and Belgium have joined forces for this purpose.

Diode lasers are the most efficient technology for converting electrical energy into useful light. However, this efficiency is not available to most industrial users due to the low brilliance of direct diode sources. The BRIDLE project seeks to remove this limitation, delivering a technological breakthrough in cost effective, high-brilliance diode lasers for industrial applications. By harnessing the power and efficiency of diode lasers, the project aims to develop an affordable direct diode laser source for industrial applications requiring the cutting and welding of sheet metal.

The final goal of BRITESPACE project is the realization of an Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) LIDAR system based on a high performance semiconductor laser source for the measurement of carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth atmosphere from satellite based space missions. IPDA LIDAR basically works on the use of two different wavelengths for the measurement of CO2 concentration: one wavelength is strongly absorbed (λOFF) and the other is lightly absorbed by the gas (λON). Additionally, the laser light is modulated or pulsed in order to allow the measurement of the height of the air column under measurement.

The CarboLase project aims to develop, interlink and evaluate an automated production chain for the manufacture of functionalized carbon fiber preforms. The project will present a robotic- and sensor-assisted route starting from the singling of flat carbon fiber textiles, to stacking and binding, laser-beam processing for the manufacture of functional boreholes up to the integration of force-transmission elements. Thanks to the automated and self-regulating process steps, small to medium batch sizes of CFRP components can be produced economically.

The project aims to develop an artificial blood vessel system for the production of biotechnologically generated heart tissue. This is an important step towards fully functional artificial tissues and organs.

According to the current state of the art, there are only inadequate approaches and methods to produce thin ceramics in a continuous process chain with high transparency, high dimensional accuracy as well as high surface and edge quality. But not only is there a lack of transparent, form-flexible ceramics, suitable processing technologies are also needed with which 3D components can be produced with the required qualities of surfaces and edges. Furthermore, there are currently no processes available which can treat the ceramic thin-glass composites necessary for a functional electronic component with switching and display functions. In the joint Fraunhofer project CeGlaFlex, the partners will investigate and develop, therefore, processes and process chains that can machine form-flexible ceramic and glass-based switching and display elements.

The project has set itself the goals 0f developing processes and process chains that can

• Produce thin and hence form-flexible transparent ceramics and display laminates with a thickness in the range of 100 μm,
• Process transparent, form-flexible ceramics and thin glass composites with high three-dimensional geometrical flexibility without damaging the material functions and
• Produce integrated switching and display elements on form-flexible substrates made of ceramic-glass composites.

In the Cluster of Excellence "Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries", Aachen-based production and materials scientists developed concepts and technologies for sustainable economic production.

A total of 18 chairs and institutes of the RWTH Aachen University as well as the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT and the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT were involved in the project. The Cluster of Excellence, endowed with approximately 40 million euros, was thus the most comprehensive research initiative in Europe with the aim of maintaining production in high-wage countries.

The ComMUnion project is dealing with the efficient production of 3D metal/CFRP multi-material components. High-speed laser texturing, surface cleaning, laser-assisted CFRP tape laying and process monitoring are to be integrated into a robot-based production cell. The ILT is developing a polygon scanner beam deflection system for the laser texturing to generate undercut structures with high surface rates in the metallic joining partner to enable high-strength connections to the CFRP tape.

The goal of the research project “EFFPROVIA” is to significantly increase the efficiency of the LPBF-process, on the one hand through the reduction of non-productive times by means of a vibration-stimulated and accelerated powder recoating and on the other hand through the processability of more cost-efficient, water-atomized powder materials. Analyses of the mechanical properties of test specimens accompanying the project are intended to ensure the applicability of the process modifications developed in the project. In this way, the results can be transferred to specific application examples from SMEs without having to carry out complex material and system qualification processes.

The aim of the joint project is to develop an energy-efficient laser-based production process for tribological coatings on highly stressed components based on the high-performance polymer polyetheretherketone (PEEK).

The innovative process enables a significant increase in energy efficiency, a sustainable reduction in material loss and the avoidance of the use of chemical cleaning agents and blasting media.

The E-TEST project is developing key technologies for a third-generation gravitational wave detector, also known as Einstein Telescope. Gravitational wave detectors provide an alternative view into interstellar processes, such as the collision of stars and supernovae, which can be detected by specific signatures in the form of gravitational waves, and thus represents an important addition to other established observation methods, such as optical or radio telescopes in the exploration of the universe. The investigations in the project cover a wide range, from geological investigations to high-precision optical components and the investigation of operation at cryogenic temperatures.

To achieve all this, a consortium of partners from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany has been formed. The project is led and coordinated by the University of Liège. The task of Fraunhofer ILT within this project is the development of a highly stable laser with an output wavelength around 2 µm and an extremely narrow linewidth below 10 kHz, which will be used within an interferometer for the detection of small, gravitational-wave induced changes in length.

Project partners: 

Hasselt University, KU Leuven University, Maastricht University, Nikhef – National Institute for Subatomic Physics, NMWP Management GmbH, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), RWTH Aachen University, Université catholique de Louvain, University of Liège (Lead Partner).

The focus of EVEREST is to develop an intelligent process and system technology for extreme high-speed laser material deposition (EHLA) in order to make the technology available to broad industrial application. In addition to the development of robust processes for rollers in the chemical and paper industry, the partners will develop systems for automated geometry detection, tool path planning as well as process monitoring for intelligent repairs and hybrid additive manufacturing and will integrate them into a demonstration machine.

The goal of the eVerest project is to develop highly flexible machine technology for precision laser processing, focusing on an increase of the effective ablation rate. With it, functional structures can be generated in tools and components at the highest geometric resolutions in the micrometer range without the user needing essential knowledge of the actual technology. All necessary subdomains of laser processing are integrated into the machine and operating concept, such as the virtual design of the product including the development and visualization of the structures while also taking the new possibilities of laser surface processing into account.

The FlexHyJoin project is developing a fully automated process for joining TP-FRP with metal in multi-material construction. With induction and laser welding, two processes are combined in a fully automated production cell that complement each other perfectly. By implementing innovative surface structures in the metal, which are created by means of laser radiation, it is possible to achieve a positive fit and thus an optimized adhesion for hybrid components, without any additional materials such as adhesives. Due to a high degree of automation and a considerable reduction in cycle time, FlexHyJoin will advance the extensive use of hybrid components in automotive series production.

The goal of the FOCUS project is the development of a flexible laser processing based on a commercial 6-axis robot. With the help of a sensor-based position detection and control, accuracies of <10 µm are to be achieved. In addition, the development of a fiber-guided ultrashort pulse laser is expected to open up further areas of application with regard to surface functionalization and highly-increased precision. In contrast to longer pulse durations in the nanosecond range, a significantly improved surface quality is achieved while maintaining the same productivity.

In lighting applications as in many other segments, the trend towards lightweight construction and increased functionality is making it increasingly necessary to combine disparate materials with one another in a single product. By combining the good thermal conductivity of die-cast components with the high surface quality of injection-moulded parts, it is possible to satisfy the stringent demands of LED technology. 

The aim of this cooperation project is to develop a hybrid, amorphous thermoplastic/light-metal composite. The joining technology used for this is a quasi-full-area microscale laser structuring on the light-metal component. Through the back-moulding of the structured surface, the composite is produced during the moulding of the plastic. This high-strength material composite is resistant to changing temperatures and can also be optimised with regard to its media-proof characteristics. It can be used to produce functional, load-bearing components with decorative covering components in a single part, whereby build volume and weight as well as logistics and assembly costs can be significantly reduced through shorter process chains.

"Fraunhofer Systemforschung Elektromobilität" is a joint project funded by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. During the project period (2013 to 2015), 16 Fraunhofer Institutes worked on project topics in the clusters "powertrain / chassis", "battery / range extender" and "construction methods / infrastructure". With the development of innovative technologies and components for hybrid and electric vehicles, the partners created attractive offers for the automotive industry.

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has launched a new cooperation platform to continue developing the additive manufacturing of metallic components: the lighthouse project futureAM. Six project partners, the Fraunhofer Institutes ILT, IWS, IWU, IGD and IFAM, as well as the Fraunhofer Research Institution IAPT, will secure Germany's technological lead in the field of additive manufacturing and make distributed resources more usable in a decentralized manner. One goal is to significantly accelerate 3D printing of metal parts while reducing manufacturing costs. The collaboration will create new digital process chains as well as scalable and robust AM processes. In addition, the institutes will develop corresponding system technology and automation and expand the range of processable materials.

In a joint ”Virtual Lab“, the futureAM partners will develop demonstrator components that show the practical suitability and the potential of the technologies developed. They will digitally map real systems and processes and optimize them by means of simulation tools – enabling users, for example, to make better predictions, or to detect and eliminate errors more quickly.

The project structure encompasses four fields of activity, which are intended to help secure the technological lead in AM: 1. Industry 4.0 and Digital Process Chains, 2. Scalable and Robust AM Processes, 3. Materials, and 4. System Technology and Automation. Fraunhofer ILT in Aachen, which will coordinate the lighthouse project for a period of three years, is in charge of the second field of activity. The scientists from Aachen are developing robust additive manufacturing processes as well as novel plant designs with large building spaces to increase process scalability.

The production of large components, e.g. for hydraulic components or mining cylinders, requires high resources and costs. Ecological and economic aspects thus require a longer service life for these components. Wear and corrosion, however, significantly shorten their service life. Until now, these components have been protected with metallic coatings, which have ecological and technological disadvantages. The Laser Material Deposition (LMD) process enables the production of metallic dense coatings without environmentally harmful chemicals and noise emissions. Nevertheless, due to the need for expert knowledge and the low productivity in relation to the investment costs, LMD has been used only to a limited extent.

In the HIP-LMD (High-power LMD) project, a predictive simulation model is being developed to predict process parameters and layer geometry. The model takes into account factors such as laser power and scanning speed. Data for the model is generated through experiments and simulations. The model identifies cause-and-effect relationships of the LMD process and converts calculated process parameters into a machine-readable format. A non-destructive ultrasonic microscopy inspection method qualifies the coatings for pores and bonding defects.

The developed model enables scalable productivity to produce metallic coatings with thicknesses of 500 μm and coating rates exceeding 1 m²/h. This approach enables "first-time-right" production regardless of operator experience. The system can be easily integrated into existing production environments and opens up application opportunities for SMEs. By making this environmentally friendly technology available to the broader market, the project will help save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by enabling service providers to extend the life of components in mass markets.

To cover the growing demand of lithium ion batteries, an increase in the productivity for cell assembly processes is necessary. The process steps of cutting, packaging and contacting are a bottleneck in the process chain and limit the output of the cell assembly process significantly. The project “HoLiB – High throughput processes for the production of lithium ion batteries” aims to increase the productivity of these process steps by the development of new technologies and the reduction of non-value-adding times within the process chain.

Regarding the cutting, a laser die cutter is developed which is able to cut electrodes within milliseconds while the electrode material is supplied continuously from a coil. A newly developed rotating stacking wheel places the electrode sheets for the packaging process. This technology replaces the pick-and-place process of a robot, as a further increase in productivity is limited for pick-and-place-processes. Laser welding is used for contacting of the electrode stack. Process quality and process speed are optimisation parameters for the welding process.

The project aims to link the different process steps as mentioned above. Therefore, the supply of the rotating stacking wheel by the laser die cutter and the electrode feed is very flexible. This leads to the reduction of buffers and waiting times and connects the process steps efficiently.
The developed technologies are realised in a prototype. An inline quality assurance is implemented in the prototype to evaluate the processes. An electrochemical analysis of fully assembled cells completes the assessment of the process.
The results of the project highly influence the productivity increase the cell assembly process of lithium ion batteries.

Multiphoton polymerization (MPP) allows components to be produced with great precision – a resolution <1 μm – thanks to photo-crosslinking. Owing the high resolution, however, the build rates are so small that an economical production of components is hardly possible.

When MPP is combined with a printer based on digital light processing (DLP) for large area meshing (DLP), the build rate for a typical microfluidic device can be increased to such an extent that the process provides economical solutions for small lot production.

A novel laser-based connection technology will be developed in which the surface of glass components can be modified by micro- and nanoscale laser structuring. Thanks to this technology, high-strength and temperature change resistant plastic-glass composites can be produced with thermoplastics and subsequent laser transmission welding or injection molding. The new joining and assembly technology significantly shortens process chains, eliminates additional materials and process steps and expands the design options for functional components.

Generative manufacturing processes have the potential to increase the flexibility of industrial production and to integrate connected customers and business partners more firmly within the production process. Additive laser or electron beam technology can be used to manufacture even very complex structures without major additional outlay. This opens the door to customized mass production. However, the production processes for parts produced using additive methods remain time consuming and expensive since the majority of the individual steps in the process are performed in isolation from one another and involve considerable manual intervention. This means that there is considerable capacity for saving time and manufacturing costs by linking various steps in the additive manufacturing process.

Additive manufacturing processes offer the potential to make industrial production more flexible and to integrate customers and business partners more closely into the production process. With additive laser or electron beam processes, even very complex structures can be produced without a great deal of additional effort. This opens the door to mass production of individualized products. However, the manufacturing processes for additively manufactured components are still very time-consuming and costly, as the individual process steps are largely isolated from each other and involve a lot of manual intervention. Linking the process steps in additive manufacturing therefore holds great potential for saving time and production costs.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

The goal of “INSPIRE” is to create an interferometric distance sensor system for absolute measurement which is also capable of performing simultaneous inline detection of the macroscopic and microscopic geometric workpiece properties of metal semi-finished products.

i-Recycle is linked to the ADIR project. ADIR explores new ways of extracting rare raw materials. As these are mainly used in electronic devices, the additional project, i-Recycle, collects used official mobile phones of the employees of the Fraunhofer Institutes and the Fraunhofer central administration so that technologies investigated in ADIR can be examined in practical test series.

High-performance components are increasingly being produced through a combination of various multi- and hybrid materials. For such combinations to succeed, a suitable joining technology is needed since there are few technologies to produce a reliable joint with these new, innovative materials, especially dissimilar ones. Such materials include ceramics (e.g., SiC) as well as metals and lightweight metals (e.g., Al, Cu, Ti). With special active solders and at temperatures above 850 °C, materials with difficult-to-wet surfaces can be provided with a metallic layer in a vacuum or inert gas. However, when complete components are heated, internal tension and, thus, cracks can often occur. For this reason, LaMeta aims to develop solders of suspensions with microparticles that have a metallization temperature up to 50% lower than previous ones, and to apply them to components locally where metallization is needed. Subsequently, the suspension is selectively heated with laser radiation so that a cohesive connection with the base material is formed as a thin metallization layer. In further steps, conventional joining can be carried out at low stress.

The system technology to be developed in the research project will enable the efficient production of printing and embossing rolls with a structure resolution of less than 1 µm. With the help of such laser-structured rolls, the basis for the mass production of printed electronics in roll-to-roll processes is to be created. An ultrashort pulsed UV laser beam source is used to achieve the highest possible precision and structure resolution, while efficiency is to be increased by means of a multi-beam setup.

However, a strong focusing of the laser beam results in a very low depth of field in the micrometer range. This is problematic in so far as the concentricity of a cylinder during the structuring process cannot be adjusted with unlimited precision and extremely high demands are made on accuracy. Innovative solutions for increasing the depth of field or for controlling the focus position must therefore be evaluated within the scope of the project.

LEMON will provide a new versatile Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) sensor concept for greenhouse gases and water vapour measurements from space.

During the last climate conference in Paris in December 2015, climate-warning limits have been discussed and agreed upon. In such frame, the need for a European satellite-borne observation capacity to monitor CO₂ emissions at global, European and country scales has been identified, as stated by the Copernicus report “Towards European operational observing system monitor fossil CO₂ emissions”.

New space missions are now being used (GOSAT, AIRS, IASI, …) or planned (OCO, IASI-NG, MicroCarb, MERLIN, …) for CO₂ and/or CH₄. Given the technical challenges, they are up to now mainly based on passive (high resolution spectrometers) instruments, Lidar instrument-based mission (MERLIN) is currently in development in Europe to probe methane only.

Therefore, the main goal of LEMON is to develop a versatile instrument, able to target CO₂, CH₄ and water vapour stable isotopes (H₂¹⁶O and HDO only, from now on referred to as water vapour or H₂O and HDO explicitly) with a single laser emitter.

The consortium consists of ONERA (FR), FRAUNHOFER (DE), CNRS (FR), KTH (SE), SPACETECH (DE), UiB (NO), INNOLAS (DE) and L-UP (FR). It has full expertise at Earth Observation technologies (from receiver, data acquisition, instrument control and versatile emitter) and is therefore able to fully explore, understand and validate the aforementioned advantages. The consortium is highly motivated to set-up and perform demonstrations at all instrument levels in order to showcase the project results. This will include the instrument set-up, TRL6 instrument validation, airborne demonstrations and CO₂, CH₄, H₂O isotopes measurements, as well as roadmaps and preliminary experiments towards space operation.

The LEMON total grant request to the EC is 3 374 725€ for the whole consortium and the project will be conducted within 48 months.

For resource and energy efficiency in industrial production, innovative materials play a decisive role: Not only do they make production processes more economical, but they are also robust and environmentally friendly. The aim of LextrA, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is to develop additive processing technologies for special intermetallic alloys, e.g. molybdenum and vanadium silicides as well as iron aluminides. Such alloys are suitable for high-temperature applications in aerospace, power generation or toolmaking. Processes used for them include powder nozzle-based Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) and powder bed-based Selective Laser Melting (SLM), also known as laser-beam melting or laser powder-bed fusion (L-PBF). The project partners in LextrA have already successfully produced and processed Mo-Si-B alloys for turbine construction, which are suitable for operation at high hot-gas temperatures and can significantly increase the efficiency and efficiency of existing turbines. The project will help successfully develop additive processes to produce directionally solidified, low-defect structures, thereby allowing for greater overall flexibility in component design compared to established manufacturing techniques.

The project MultiPROmobil aims to study an integrated manufacturing and system technology that can produce bionically based lightweight structures efficiently in a single device with several manufacturing processes and without changing the manufacturing equipment. For this purpose, the project is researching and demonstrating a flexible and reconfigurable laser robot technology for integrated cutting, welding and metal deposition with a single processing head. This integrated process chain is intended to significantly strengthen the providers and users of the SME-dominated laser industry in NRW and, in particular, to help emerging e-mobile production in NRW remain agile on the world market.

In the collaborative project NADEA, which is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF, project partners from research and industry have developed NADEA^AM, a cobalt free high-entropy alloy designed for Laser Material Deposition (LMD). Its Widmanstätten microstructure makes it a veritable duplex material particularly suited for operation in corrosive environments where high strength and wear resistance are required.

The microstructure consists of austenite (fcc) and ferrite (bcc), however, unlike in duplex steels, the major part of the bcc phase is ordered (bcc-B2). The ratio fcc:bcc can be tailored by heat treatment to range from 55:45 to 65:35.

The crack-free processing of NADEA^AM into a near-net-shape component with a density > 99.5 % was achieved at Fraunhofer ILT. Investigations of the project partner Access e.V. show that after solution heat treatment and aging a super-fine fcc-bcc duplex microstructure with a yield strength Rp0.2 of 600 MPa is obtained. The tensile strength Rm is 1100 MPa at a total elongation of 27 %. A comparable duplex steel reaches Rm ≈ 900 MPa in the tensile test with Rp0.2 ≈ 640 MPa and A ≈ 20 %.

Links:

• NADEA presentation
• Research article
  

The goal of NeuGenWälz is the additive production of roller bearings by means of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). To do this, the partners will develop materials and LPBF systems engineering in a coordinated and integrative way. The key challenge here is to develop a material that meets both the requirements of the roller bearing (high hardness to withstand mechanical stress) and, at the same time, that can be processed without cracks using LPBF. The crack-free processing will be supported by the use of a high temperature preheating at about 500 ° C.

The aim of the PhotonFlex project is to develop and test innovative technologies for the cost-effective and highly productive manufacturing of flexible organic solar cells.

The laser welding of polymers became over the last decade a strong competitor for the conventional joining technologies and significantly raised the industrial interest for this technique. Main factors contributing to the successful evolution of the laser welding of polymers lay within the process related benefits such as: contactless processing, high flexibility in time and product, high automation degree and precisely controlled and localized energy input.

The aim of the project is to establish a suitable process chain that can be used in oral and maxillofacial surgery to produce resorbable, patient-specific as well as porous magnesium implants (such as scaffolds) for bone defects. For this purpose, Fraunhofer ILT will qualify the additive manufacturing process Selective Laser Melting for the processing of magnesium alloys and develop a suitable workflow for the integration of pore structures in individual implants.

In nearly every field of manufacturing, components and resulting products are becoming increasingly complex and more individual. Moreover, to succeed in the marketplace, companies have to shorten the time they need to move from an idea of a new product to launching it on the market. Established manufacturing processes are, however, reaching their limits to a certain extent. Additive manufacturing promises considerable time savings and process innovations to create value for the manufacturing industry; it can also help companies create completely new product features. Product, process and material data on additive manufacturing processes as well as innovative materials and innovative production equipment must be made available at an early stage in product development. The results of the ProLMD development project will play a key role in strengthening Germany’s international competitiveness over the long term in line with the German Federal Government’s High-Tech Strategy.

As part of the REMULAN joint project, Fraunhofer ILT and partners from industry are developing a laser-based coating process for the production of sol-gel-based non-stick-layers and the therefore necessary materials. The process should lead to a sustainable reduction in the use of materials, energy consumption and the associated climate-damaging emissions both in the production and application of machine components provided with non-stick-layers.

Within the joint project ScanCut, four project partners are developing a hybrid manufacturing process for the high-precision laser cutting of thin-walled metal ribbons. For this purpose, Fraunhofer ILT has combined a helical-beam optic with a multi-beam module. The laser beam power is provided by a high-power USP beam source.

ScanCut is a joint project of KOSTAL Kontakt Systeme GmbH in Lüdenscheid, the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, as well as Pulsar Photonics GmbH and Amphos GmbH, both of which are located in Herzogenrath.

Conventional processing of tool steels by means of the Additive Manufacturing process Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) tends to lead to cracking due to internal stresses (analogy to welding). This is specifically due to high-alloy, carbide-containing, abrasion-resistant tool steels. By adjusting process parameters such as the preheating temperature or the scanning strategy, cracking can still be avoided in small, simple components. However, with component size and complexity, the level of internal stresses increases, which means that technically relevant tools made of tool steels cannot currently be produced using LPBF. A subsequent hot isostatic pressing (HIP) reduces pores and internal microcracks, but not macroscopic cracks.

In this project, together with partners from industry, two modified high-speed steels are to be proven that they can be processed into crack-free components using LPBF. The aim is to develop an adapted LPBF process for complex structures and the post-processing process chain "hot isostatic pressing (HIP) - machining – quenching and tempering", as well as to demonstrate high resistance to fatigue, rolling and abrasive wear. Design guidelines for the production of complex components using LPBF and HIP quenching and tempering, as well as the specification of mechanical properties in data sheets, are intended to enable SMEs to integrate LPBF processing of high-speed steels in their own business areas with minimal business risks.

The aim of the SeQuLas project is to develop a novel laser-based process technology that can weld thermoplastics without the use of absorbers. Using a continuously updating temperature field, the project partners will segment a seam contour and adapt the irradiation order and parameters during the welding process, thus achieving a defined energy input. This will contribute to increasing the flexibility and efficiency of industrial production in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Microplastics enter our wastewater and the environment every day. Wastewater treatment plants are not able to sufficiently reduce microplastics. For this reason, the SimConDrill partners are focusing on the development of a filter which is ready for serial production and enables the filtration of particles down to 0.01mm (this equals the thickness of kitchen foil) on the basis of the patented cyclone filter. Due to its special technology, this filter is clogging and maintenance-free and not a disposable filter. Once the prototype has been built, it will be tested in a treatment plant using real wastewater.

Today's production technology is highly automated in many sectors. Yet the smoothening and polishing of free-form surfaces – such as tool inserts or medical implants –is still often done manually since setting up automated processing entails considerable work and costs, and hence is not economical.

SYMPLEXITY aims to exploit the possibilities of automation for this kind of work by having robots take over parts of it. For this purpose, Fraunhofer ILT and its project partners are developing cooperative and collaborative robot cells and the required safety technology in which the robot takes on simpler tasks and humans the more demanding ones.

In the "TaCoMA" research project, the basic principles for the production of additively manufactured milling tool heads are being systematically investigated. The overall project goals are the manufacturing of improved milling tools from a customised bainitic steel using the Additive Manufacturing process Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) as well as the derivation of design guidelines for implementation in industry. Recent research has shown that the targeted supply of cooling lubricant can increase the productivity of end milling tools by 50 percent. However, the production of the complex cooling channels required for this is time-consuming and cost-intensive.

In addition to qualifying a new material, the central innovation of the project is to make use of the increased degrees of freedom of Additive Manufacturing for the production of high-performance milling tools. The performance of the tools will be validated in machining technology tests.

Generally applicable design guidelines for manufacturing and post-processing are being developed for the design of additively manufactured cutting tools. In addition, the focus is on the qualification of a bainitic material for the Additive Manufacturing of basic tool bodies, which can be transferred to the qualification of other steels using the methods developed in the project.

The innovations this project is pursuing will significantly contribute to increasing energy efficiency and climate protection by reducing CO2 emissions, both in terms of process and application. Due to the high energy efficiency of the laser process compared to furnace processes, the energy required to functionalize the layer can be significantly reduced with successful process development. In addition, the range of applications of tribologically stressed lightweight components will significantly expand in machine and automotive construction and the service life and the efficiency of the components will increase. Resulting from this is both an increase in energy efficiency and an emission reduction for the corresponding industrial plants and systems.

Various studies forecast a steady increase in installed capacity for the generation of electrical energy by 2.5 to 3.5 percent annually until 2030. The current discussions with regard to changes in the global climate underline the need for optimal and efficient processes. Alternative energies cannot cover demand sufficiently in the short term and can currently only supplement it. The proportion of electrical energy generated by burning fossil fuels will remain constant at around 80 percent, so turbomachinery will continue to play a central role.

Efficient Surface Treatment with the Laser

Whether they are used for functional structuring, coating or polishing, lasers have proved to be very advantageous tools that have made processes in many areas of industrial production significantly more cost-effective and robust. However, previous laser applications in industrial surface treatment often have limited throughput or are not suitable for more complex adjustments.

Funded by the European Union, the ultraSURFACE project focuses on optimizing optical systems with dynamic 3D applicability and on developing strategies for laser-based production processes with high-throughput. The project also helps to make manufacturing more environmentally friendly in Europe: The concepts under development reduce noise, dispersion dust, and the use of (toxic) chemicals as well as improve the CO2 balance by lowering emissions. Ten partners are involved in the project, which is coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen.

New Optics Designs for Increased Throughput

In the ultraSURFACE project, scientists and industry partners are developing two new optical designs which allow users to adapt laser beam manipulation individually and to increase throughput by a factor of ten compared to conventional processes. To accomplish this, the partners use beam shaping and beam splitter optics for the laser. For laser polishing and coating, the beam shaping optics can be used to individually adapt the intensity profile of the laser radiation to local surface conditions. Furthermore, the surface can be processed simultaneously with several individual beams by means of the beam splitter optics for laser microstructuring.

The aim of the ultraSURFACE project is also to demonstrate that its processes can easily be used in manufacturing – the technologies developed here will later be integrated into a variety of industrial applications using appropriate prototypes. The new concepts will be tested and evaluated in laser polishing, laser thin-film processing and laser microstructuring. In addition to high-quality products for the automotive sector or for mechanical engineering in general, these concepts are also suitable for manufacturing consumer-market products. The new concepts of the ultraSURFACE project thus offer great potential for many industries – not only in the European laser market.

The aim of the DBU project 3KLANK is to provide a robust, efficient and flexible pretreatment process for fiber composite materials that can be used in an industrial environment. In the project, Fraunhofer ILT is working with cleanLASER GmbH to develop a functional model of a frequency-converted, fiber-coupled laser system with an emission wavelength of 3 µm that is suitable for industrial use. This allows for the cleaning of fiber composite material surfaces by a gentle and targeted laser ablation of the resin matrix without damaging the fibers, which are important for the material strength. Due to the adapted wavelength and fiber guidance, the laser system allows for a high degree of automation of the overall process. In addition, the newly developed beam source forms the basis for the development and optimization of new methods for laser pre-treatment of surfaces for varnishing and bonding processes of fiber-reinforced composites, which are being carried out in the project by Fraunhofer IFAM.